Dog poo anger hits Harrogate

Finola Fitzpatrick

Fed-up Bilton residents have contacted the Harrogate Advertiser to hit back at a repeat dog fouling offender.

Residents said it has been going on for "months and months" in the Hill Top area, and that the culprit must be leaving the dog mess at night-time without detection.

The Bilton community believes that it is the same person who is failing to pick it up - noticing patterns in both the dog owner's behaviour and in what is being left behind.

One resident said: "It is taking over my life, I can't believe somebody would keep doing this - it's just awful. They always do it in the middle of the road and then cars go through it. It has to stop.

"When children are playing out as well, they could easily step in it. I'm worried that if this carries on, it could become a health issue."

This is not the first time that the Advertiser has been contacted about dog fouling in the district, and it is an issue that often causes emotions to flare, from the younger to the older generations.

Only in January this year, four-year-old Isla Freeman from Ripon contacted the newspaper, or at least her mum did in the first instance, to tell us about her campaign to stamp out dog fouling once and for all.

Isla enjoys walking along the footpath that runs beside the river Skell from Bondgate to Barefoot Street many times with her mum and sister, but its condition had deteriorated so much that she decided enough was enough, and that something had to be done.

The posters designed by Isla, which read, 'there's no such thing as the dog poo fairy', and, 'it makes a mess of my shoes and my baby sister's pushchair', went up all around Ripon, across the district, and even went nationwide - with residents from cities, town's and villages identifying their own problem spot areas.

The poster campaign became a viral sensation, with Facebook posts about it being shared hundreds of times.